The perfect Christmas Gift

Finally a tip for those still wondering what to get him/her for Christmas, what could be better than the ultimate remote control to bring perfection to your wife/husband or even the kids.

The husbands model (to control the wife) comes complete with a variety of essential options including 'Remove Clothes', a 'Mute' button and crucially an option to turn off 'Pre-Menstrual Stress'! The remote also features an in-built luxury menu offering services including a breast increase/reduction dial!

For the women the control includes buttons getting him to stop "snoring", "farting" and "belching", and to talk about "feelings", "shopping" and "shoes". The latter are only 'on' buttons (unlike 'ego' which can only be switched off). However a warning, be careful what you wish for, who wants their husband talking about shopping and shoes all the time!

There are even versions available to control the kids, the boss, traffic police etc., worth checking out and all around R$15,00.

http://www.heals.co.uk/Adult-Stocking-Fillers/Control-A-Kid-Remote-Control/invt/854194&bklist=icat,4,shop,gifts,adult_stocking_fillers

Picanha Vs. Cars

Invited to a barbeque the other week, had to pop into the local super to pick up a slab of meat (picanha) and was startled by the price of R$54.07. Later discussing this with colleagues, together with the other normal masculine subjects we arrived at cars and the reductions currently on offer.

This led us to the main issue, is the car worth more than picanha?
Therefore I carried out a small research using Pão de Acucar as the supermarket price and Web Motors´best deal, together with the cars of some colleagues to see if they are really getting value for money.

As you can see from our list, the best deal is the Peugeot 307 at R$39.08 pr KG, closely followed by the Renault and Civic, our picanha comes next and the Hyundai Vera Cruz is the most expensive kilo for kilo at nearly R$70.00 per KG.
And who was it who said that the Korean cars were the cheap option?

Recession Vs. Depression

Having participated in an economic/investment event yesterday, the question sprang to mind of exactly when is a downturn a recession and when is it a depression.
We all know that a recession is when we have 2 quarters of negative growth in succession, also that the Brazilian official numbers are a touch optimistic, ipso facto Brasil should be there at the end of the first quarter next year, assuming negative growth Q4 2008 and Q1 2009.
This should be a little different from the government figures of 5.1% this year and 2.8% next year, however we are looking to 1.5% still in 2009, call me conservative.

The term "depression" is bandied around willy nilly, but few seem to have a good and less woolly definition of exactly what it constitutes.
For Wikipedia it is "a sustained, long downturn in one or more economies. It is more severe than a recession, which is seen as a normal downturn in the business cycle.
Considered a rare but extreme form of recession, a depression is characterized by abnormal increases in unemployment, restriction of credit, shrinking output and investment, numerous bankruptcies, reduced amounts of trade and commerce, as well as highly volatile relative currency value fluctuations, mostly devaluations.

Taking the 6 main points; High increase in unemployment, credit problems, investment and output shrinkage, bankruptcies, reduced trade/commerce and currency fluctuations, the US and Europe seem to qualify. The only factor unapparent so far is the "sustained" part which is obviously subjective (how long is a piece of string) and needs a bit of time to happen, so assuming things carry on into 2010 I presume we could be there officially.

The best definition I heard for the difference between recession and depression is as follows:
Recession is when your neighbour loses his job, depression is when you lose your job. I guess one positive side to this downturn is that it should produce a number of new jokes.

Happy birthday, 40 years today

Along the lines of fascinating and useless information the computer mouse was invented officially 40 years ago today by the American Douglas Engelbart at the California Stanford Research Institute.
It may have looked like a medievil automated circumcision device, but apparently you could use it on glass topped or multipattern surfaces without having to wack it every 5 minutes.
It was never supposed to be called the "mouse" but the "engelbart" doesnt have quite the same ring to it, or of course the link to the tail like wire hanging out of it.

Worth it´s weight in gold

When something is incredibly useful or dear to us we say that it is "worth it´s weight in gold" so I thought as I have a bunch of friends and colleagues who cuddle up to their iPhones every night I would put it to the test.
With the price of gold at U$D760 an ounce and an iPhone weighing 133 grams or 4.7 ounces the fair price would be U$D3,603. So you see the iPhone with the current gold price is actually a bargain.

Get real

Each day on the Bloomberg channel they interview someone supposedly knowledgeable from London about the worldwide financial situation between 6.30am and 7.00am, Brazil time.
The majority of the shell-shocked fund managers repeat the same sort of thing:"never seen anything like it", "the worst in our generation" etc. etc.
As most of them appear around 17 years old and recently out of teddy bear pyjamas , one can understand perhaps their bemusement as a generation who only new "boom" get to grips with "bust".
Obviously the interviewer always asks them when the current situation is going to end and also fairly obviously they explain that they don´t have a clue!
Until last week when someone shed some real light.
"When the companys get real" he said. Today the majority of companys are still publicly expecting growth of "just" 1% where they should be announcing a slide of around 10%. Therefore we will be enduring turbulent times as every little bit of bad news impacts us, as each company is surprised by their results, so for now we just need to hold on to our hats and hope our stomachs can withstand the ups and downs of the rollercoaster ride. As Warren Buffets´ guru replied, when asked how the market would perform, volatile, at least we can count on that.